James Whistler (1834-1903) was born in Massachusetts and lived in London for many years. He pursued aestheticism and advocated "art for art's sake" and was known as a pioneer of modernist art. Joanna Schiffnan, a studio model from Ireland, has appeared several times in Whistler's work as the "Woman in White". The two maintained a close relationship for more than 20 years, and although outsiders knew little about her, Whistler's work created with her "woman in white" image has inspired many artists since the Victorian era.
On 26 February, the exhibition "Whistler's Woman in White: Joanna Schiffnan" was exhibited at the Royal Institute of Art. The exhibition revolves around the story of Whistler and Joanna Schiffnan, who plays an important role in His life and work as Whistler's friend, model, lover and work partner. In the view of art critic Jonathan Jones, this was a revolutionary moment in art history, where Whistler and Schiffernan broke with Victorian painting and the nature of life swept away the hypocrisy and Mannerism.
American cowboy James McNeill Whistler and his fiery red-haired Irish lover Joanna Hiffernan smash Victorian British art in this delightful, comedic exhibition. That's a good story. There is no doubt that this story will soon become a decent movie to appear in new media. What are you waiting for, come to the Royal Academy of Arts and enjoy the adventure of a lifetime with the pioneers of modern art.
Whistler's famous "Portrait of a Mother" (not on this exhibit)
In London in the 1860s, how novel and subversive it was to see the double display of Shiffernan and Whistler! You have to realize how crowded Victorian art was. In that era, a wall was enough to be arranged as an airtight scene. Dante Gabriel Rossetti's The Annunciation is claustrophobic, in a small room with figures crowded in a pseudo-medieval aesthetic prison. Then look at the opposite wall, and the raw, drunken, sexual fragments of real life will wake you up.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The Annunciation, 1849-1850
Whistler, Wapping, 1860-1864
Whistler's "Wapping" is confusing. Back in london docks in the early 1860s, Charles Dickens had just published Great Prospects, and we learned about Victorian London from Dickens's Gothic fog. Whistler's Wapping, however, depicts London with serious yet sensual realism. It's a modern city where a group of bohemians in bohemian style chat in a riverside bar overlooking grey and green boats. In the scene of the party, Schiffernan brushes her hair back, and it seems that both she and Whistler think they are in the free, relaxed and avant-garde Paris.
Paris was where Whistler traveled in the 1850s and met radical artists and critics such as Gustav Courbet, Eduard Manet and Charles Baudelaire. While Baudelaire published Painter of Modern Life, Whistler was working on the painting Wapping. Whistler brings creamy hues and a look of acceptance of irony to london's modern moments along the River Thames. He brought to London the artistic sensibilities of Manet's masterpieces Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbe and Olympia. All the fun of the French was transplanted to Gladstone and Dislari in England.
Whistler, The Artist in His Studio
How much do we know about Schiffernan outside of Whistler's art? Joanna Schiffernan was born in Limerick, Ireland, in 1843. At the age of 17, she met Whistler, a fashionably dressed artist. Contemporaries say Hiffernan didn't have much formal education, but she read extensively and had a keen perspective. She may be an aspiring artist and model. Whistler's three White Symphonies for Schiffernan in a long white dress are collected in this exhibition. From this, we can see their cooperation. This can also be seen as the beginning of performance art.
Whistler, Symphony in White, No. 1, 1862
Symphony in White, No. 1 (partial)
The plain white dress you see is a joke. In Whistler's 1862 work Symphony in White, No. 1, Schiffernan is not at all pure. She stood confidently above, and inside the supposedly plain dress, Whistler hinted at her nakedness. That's because she's standing on a bearskin carpet, the soft fur directing your gaze to the edge of the skirt, imagining her bare feet snuggled up inside. It is a traditional image that shows sensuality in sculpture. This image can be traced back to a Renaissance image in which David stepped on Goliath's hair.
The first viewers of the painting may not have imagined this, but they must have been struck by Shiffnan's loose red hair and relaxed posture. The work shows off a kind of love that is about to come out. Whistler wittily imitates the Raphael pre-eloquents, as well as hints at repressed desires. He might as well write on canvas: "I'm sleeping with her." ”
Whistler, Symphony in White, No. 2, 1864
Velázquez, The Rokeby Venus
The second, The White Symphony, shows Shifernan in a double image: she gracefully leans against the fireplace, holding a Japanese fan, posing. She turned and was contemplating that we could see her face in the mirror on the fireplace. This is the effect that Whistler deepened from the inspiration he took from Velázquez's work The Rokeby Venus. Whistler had set off with Schiffnan to Madrid to study Velázquez, but was distracted when they found the Love Nest in the Pyrenees.
Whistler, Symphony in White, No. 3, 1865-1867
Whistler, Purple and Rose- The Lange Leizen of the Six Marks, 1864
In an unfinished scene, Whistler watches naked Shivnan in the studio. In addition, he showed how she was asleep. In the picture, Shivnan is dressed in a kimono surrounded by sparkling Chinese porcelain, and Whistler imagines her as a woman emerging from a "ukiyo-e" painting. Whistler's mother, the one in the painting Portrait of a Mother, urged him to make honest decisions about Schiffernan. Whistler's reaction was not to get married, but to make a will and leave everything to her.
In 1886, Schiffernan died in his 40s, before Whistler. Of course, the story told in this exhibition takes place in the autumn of 1865, when they were in Truville, Normandy, staying with Courbet. They ate seafood in the hotel, painted by the beach, and listened to Schiffernan sing Irish songs at dusk. Courbet remembers it as a romantic time. If the French director Fran ois Truffaut had been alive, this part of the story would have really been made into a great movie.
Courbet " Jo, the Beautiful Irish Girl "
Courbet also painted Schiffernan. He always carried the originals with him and painted "replicas" for sale. Of the three editions on display, which one is one he considers a treasure? That has to be Jo, the Beautiful Irish Girl from the National Museum in Stockholm, a painting that evokes nostalgic enthusiasm. Rumor has it all gone further: Schiffernan may even have been a model for Courbet's masterpiece The Origin of the World. But the curators did not find any evidence that she was in Paris at the time. Perhaps Courbet was impressed by her red hair.
Portrait of Hermine Gallia inspired by Whistler by Gustav Klimt, 1904
Frederick Walker was inspired by Whistler's The Woman in White, 1871, gouache on paper
In fact, the exhibition shows everywhere that Schiffernan was never objectified and never became the prey of the artist. It's a surprisingly tender love story, and it also brings about one of the most revolutionary moments in art, where the nature of life sweeps away hypocrisy and mannerism.
The exhibition will run until 22 May.
(This article is compiled from The Guardian by Jonathan Jones, an art critic.) ）